- How I Got Over
Infobox Song
Name = How I Got Over
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Artist =Clara Ward
alt Artist =Mahalia Jackson ,Aretha Franklin ,Blind Boys of Alabama
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Published = 1951
Released = 1951
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Writer =Clara Ward
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Audio sample? =How I Got Over is a Gospel
hymn composed and published in 1951 byClara Ward (1924-1973). Notable recordings of this work have been made byMahalia Jackson (1961, winner of theGrammy Award for Best Soul Gospel Performance in 1976),Aretha Franklin (1972 on her "Amazing Grace" record album), and theBlind Boys of Alabama (2008 album "Down in New Orleans ").Inspirations
According to her sister, Willa Ward, one of the inspirations for this song was an experience Clara Ward, Willa, their mother, Gertrude, and members of their singing group had travelling in the racially segregated South in 1951. In the South, en route to Atlanta, Georgia, they were besieged by a group of white men. The men were enraged that Black women were riding in a luxury vehicle (a
Cadillac ), and surrounded their car and terrorized them with racist taunts. The women were rescued when, in a burst of inspiration, Gertrude Ward feigned demonic possession, spewing curses and incantations at the men, who fled. [Ward-Royster, Willa, "How I Got Over: Clara Ward and the World-Famous Ward Singers", Temple University Press, 1997, paper ISBN 1-56639-490-2, pp. 102-104.]Willa Ward writes that later that year Clara composed the song. In her biography of Clara Ward Willa discredits the rumor that Clara pirated "How I Got Over" from William Herbert Brewster, saying that Clara reworked an old spiritual she and Willa sang as children. [Id. at p. 99.]
References
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